An intentionally random life

#ThankStitching No. 26 with Cheri Lehnow

Cheri Lehnow

Hand embroidery was never my craft from the beginning. I was a sewist, for the most part. But embroidery was something I admired, drooled over and aspired to commit to. I’ve never been one to sit down and sit still since my hands (and my thoughts) are constantly moving. SO needless to say, embroidery is PERfect for me! Ha ha. Seriously though, it is the ideal craft for anyone who needs to keep busy creating, but doesn’t have loads of time. I never found the time to start stitching until I had my second kid. After that, time to create just seemed short, disjunct, and nearly non-existent. I needed something I could pick up and put down in an instant, along with something I could focus on even for just a few minutes at a time. I was instantly hooked.

I fell in love with each and every stitch and felt like my anxieties and stress were slowly melting from my brain and into a neat little round hoop. Embroidery brought me to a place where I felt a new connection with my creative fire. It helped me wind down and de-stress at the end of those long mom days, and most of all, it introduced me to so so many amazing, sweet, talented stitchers. Currently, I’ve become so obsessed with it, that I find myself trying to hook everyone else! I’ve started designing beginning stitcher patterns and even some pre-printed kits! I’ve created hundreds of needle minders that have travelled all over the world. I’m passionate about making others love the art as much as I do, and about making it something that helps them along as well. No matter what stitching is meant to do for them. It’s different for everyone, but once you start, you won’t be able to step away from that needle and floss, even on the craziest of days. Especially on the craziest of days. Because that’s what embroidery is to me: sanity.

#ThankStitching is a project to collect and curate the reasons why stitchers worldwide are thankful for their particular needleart. Look for daily posts in November with hourly posts on Thanksgiving Day.

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I am a hand embroidery artist who embroiders images and text that range from the whimsical, to the unexpected, to the evocative, on a range of playful and vintage-inspired fabrics. The tactile nature of embroidery endlessly fascinates me. I love the texture and feel of fabrics and different stitches, and combine them in ways not only to better render an image, but also to entice the viewer to want to touch the surfaces, as well. Hand embroidering allows me the time to create and relax; there’s nothing so soothing as pulling floss through fabric.